It should also be pointed out that information of (probably) higher quality can be obtained via methods that have been around for ages: heart rate, blood flow, breathing rate, rate of blinking, pupil dilation, etc. etc. So what's the point of using a horrendously expensive MRI?
Bad programming is hardly identifiable by almost every programmer. Consider one case of bad programming: an obscure timing-related bug in some multithreaded software which causes the system to die under load.
How many "rank and file" programmers (as you call them) could identify and fix a problem like that without any creative thought?
I would also take issue with your comment that "almost any programming task has been reworked umpteen times". Sure, the fundamentals have remained mostly unchanged (eg. what sorting algorithm do I use?). But every year brings different challenges, new communications protocols, faster hardware, different requirements, etc. Even accounting software has to change frequently to accommodate new tax rules and so on. How often does someone come up to the builder of a bridge and say "This now needs to support 1000 more pedestrians a minute. Oh, and each one needs to get to the other side in half the time"?
You seem to consider "programmers" to be a lower form of life to theoreticians and system architects. I would argue that programming is an equally creative task - assuming that you work somewhere which allows it to be.
Full calendar which can synchronise with the desktop
Pervasive T9 throughout its interface
It's an open platform, so apps will be written to play MP3s and Ogg Vorbis (though it doesn't come with them as standard)
100-150hrs standby
Speakerphone & good quality audio
Full colour screen
Notepad, voice recorder (and voice dialling)
GPRS, HSCSD, and Bluetooth
The only item on your list it doesn't have is a radio. But more crucially than any of the above, it's an open platform, so applications can be written for it to do almost anything you want.
For example, someone's already written a MPEG 4 video recorder for the phone, which I frankly find amazing.
Oh, PS... it won't work in the US. But you could wait a few months for the Sony Ericsson P800, which will do.
Re:What Difference Does It Make In The Long Run?
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Palm OS 5.0 Preview
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· Score: 1
The phone-PDA convergence, on the other hand, just doesn't make sense. First, cellphones seem to be shrinking while PDAs seem to be growing. Second, I frequently need to use my PDA while on the phone, so I can't imagine how merging the two could possibly be a good thing.
Consider the Nokia 9210. It's a cellphone/PDA with a speakerphone, so you can use it as a PDA while you're on the phone, which in fact is a lot easier than trying to juggle two boxes. imho quite a few devices will be like this in the future.
You can already play Doom on the Nokia 9210. Full-colour, full-screen, and faster than I remember it originally playing on a 486. And if that doesn't turn your phone into a games console, I don't know what does.
Well done, Jon, this is the first time any of your articles have made me nauseated enough to block you from appearing on my front page. You've truly excelled yourself.
However. How many people who own PDAs also own MP3 players, mobile phones, games consoles, digital cameras, portable TVs, etc.? Probably they all own at least one of these, because PDA users are generally technology "early adopters" who like to have the latest gadgets. And how many of these people would like to save money and space by combining all of these gadgets into one? Probably a lot of them.
Of course, this assumes that the price is right. But the current trend towards PDAs with "open" operating systems (eg. Symbian-based devices) is to provide all of these features and more... for if not an equivalent price to a Palm, a price cheaper than buying 3 of the above devices.
To be blunt, if all you use your PDA for is as an addressbook, you should have a paper addressbook. But if you actually use it as a Personal Digital Assistant, the more CPU power you can get, the better.
Let's say someone sends you a quick message with the name and address of a funky new Chinese restaurant. Wouldn't it be great if you could just tap the phone number and it would dial the restaurant to make a reservation?
Just because something can have loads of security flaws doesn't mean it's not useful...
Rubbish! Have you actually listened to any MiniDiscs which have been digitally copied from CDs? Personally, I have never been able to tell the difference between the copy and the original. Perhaps a true audiophile could, but independent tests have shown that panels of listeners cannot. MiniDisc has taken off in Japan and Europe and is gradually replacing cassette players in hi-fi equipment.
Don't be so bloody elitist. Just because someone uses VB does not automatically mean they are a moron. Personally, I think it's one of the worst languages known to man, but I am willing to accept that it meets others' needs... and besides, the original poster might be an expert in working round all the bugs MS included. And he's moving to a different language now anyway!
Also, the phrases "an expert programmer who uses Visual Basic" and "an expert Visual Basic programmer" mean very different things.
In fact, in Latin, "year" is anno, as in "Anno Domini". And "anus" means "anus", strangely enough. "Ano" would mean "in the anus"... A double n in Latin often converts to an ñ in Romance languages (eg. Spanish/Portuguese).
Hear, hear! When 3D display technology is discussed, I don't think I've ever heard people consider those who don't have true binocular vision. I personally am ~75% blind in my right eye, which has very little effect on my life at the moment - the only thing I can't "do" is see those $!%^ing "Magic Eye" pictures, or 3d pictures with those stupid red and green glasses. But if all future display technology uses similar techniques to achieve a 3d effect, this could seriously impair my ability to work with computers. The fact that you can downgrade a 3d LCD to work in 2d isn't much help, as it means that you are missing out on some of its capabilities, and someday those capabilities may be required to do your job.
One interesting fact is that (as other posters have mentioned), I tend to get 3d information from the parallax effect. When I look at a holographic picture, it doesn't immediately appear to be 3d, but if I move my head even slightly, it seems to jump out and my brain can perceive the depth effects. So I would guess that the same thing would occur with these LCD displays.
On the bright side, there is so much fascinating research being performed into curing blindness in a variety of ways (such as retinal transplants, brain implants, etc.) that blindness and sight impairment might even be a thing of the past in 30 years' time. For the rich in developed countries, anyway.
Have you considered a Psion device? They've got a keyboard you can (pretty much) touch-type on, a powerful OS, and I think you can even get some Unix tools for them.
Recent Genetic Programming research has hypothesised that introns provide structural protection for fit individuals - see Peter Nordin's paper on the subject. This would carry over to "real" evolution quite nicely.
Erm... Johannes Erdfelt is the Linux USB maintainer, and the author of a large amount of the code therein. Whether this is he, however, is another question...
Yeah, the dentists' bills back then were terrible, and we wouldn't want to bring them back.
Seriously, the standard of spelling and grammar in this article is slightly better than the norm - ie. terrible - and this is going to be a published book?
One more criticism: does anyone else feel that Jon is getting a big ego-rush (still!) from this whole thing? "The Voices from the Hellmouth series... demonstrated the power of interactivity and connectivity". Well done Jon, you enlightened the population all by yourself. I'm definitely in favour of the overall message in these articles, it's just his tone sometimes that I find a bit nauseating.
An incremental linker is like a linker, but more incremental.
Seriously, what it does is speed the process of linking (ie. putting compiled object files together to form an executable program) by storing information about the process in some temporary files. Then, when the program is relinked, it is a lot quicker because a lot of information can be read from these files, when it would otherwise need to be recreated each time.
Borland C++ and Delphi (on Windows) have incremental linkers; they also create gigantic temporary files, but there you go.
I mean, a quick straw poll: how many people care about the source code to an Amiga program being GPL'd compared to that of a slick, emacs-thrashing programmer's editor?
Are you still talking about nedit here?:) But seriously, I am far more interested in DOpus being GPL'd - firstly because I am an ex-Amiga fanatic, but also because it was a truly seminal piece of software that redefined the way many people used their computers. Also, Linux GPL software is announced every day, GPL software for the Amiga is much rarer.
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Re:Childhood's End - true SciFi
on
Childhood's End
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· Score: 1
Minor correction: the "head" Overlord is called Karellen.
Incidentally, I have to say that "Childhood's End" is one of my all-time favourite sci-fi novels, because of its enormous scope, and the way that it suggests that humanity may not be fully "evolved" but still has a large (and scary) step to go. The idea of our children being somehow more (or less) than human is extremely powerful. Also, it is excellent social commentary on when it was written.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, MMS is a fairly flexible standard and there's no reason why you can't send video clips over it. For, probably, a lot less money.
It should also be pointed out that information of (probably) higher quality can be obtained via methods that have been around for ages: heart rate, blood flow, breathing rate, rate of blinking, pupil dilation, etc. etc. So what's the point of using a horrendously expensive MRI?
Bad programming is hardly identifiable by almost every programmer. Consider one case of bad programming: an obscure timing-related bug in some multithreaded software which causes the system to die under load.
How many "rank and file" programmers (as you call them) could identify and fix a problem like that without any creative thought?
I would also take issue with your comment that "almost any programming task has been reworked umpteen times". Sure, the fundamentals have remained mostly unchanged (eg. what sorting algorithm do I use?). But every year brings different challenges, new communications protocols, faster hardware, different requirements, etc. Even accounting software has to change frequently to accommodate new tax rules and so on. How often does someone come up to the builder of a bridge and say "This now needs to support 1000 more pedestrians a minute. Oh, and each one needs to get to the other side in half the time"?
You seem to consider "programmers" to be a lower form of life to theoreticians and system architects. I would argue that programming is an equally creative task - assuming that you work somewhere which allows it to be.
- Full calendar which can synchronise with the desktop
- Pervasive T9 throughout its interface
- It's an open platform, so apps will be written to play MP3s and Ogg Vorbis (though it doesn't come with them as standard)
- 100-150hrs standby
- Speakerphone & good quality audio
- Full colour screen
- Notepad, voice recorder (and voice dialling)
- GPRS, HSCSD, and Bluetooth
The only item on your list it doesn't have is a radio. But more crucially than any of the above, it's an open platform, so applications can be written for it to do almost anything you want.For example, someone's already written a MPEG 4 video recorder for the phone, which I frankly find amazing.
Oh, PS... it won't work in the US. But you could wait a few months for the Sony Ericsson P800, which will do.
Consider the Nokia 9210. It's a cellphone/PDA with a speakerphone, so you can use it as a PDA while you're on the phone, which in fact is a lot easier than trying to juggle two boxes. imho quite a few devices will be like this in the future.
You can already play Doom on the Nokia 9210. Full-colour, full-screen, and faster than I remember it originally playing on a 486. And if that doesn't turn your phone into a games console, I don't know what does.
Well done, Jon, this is the first time any of your articles have made me nauseated enough to block you from appearing on my front page. You've truly excelled yourself.
Of course, this assumes that the price is right. But the current trend towards PDAs with "open" operating systems (eg. Symbian-based devices) is to provide all of these features and more... for if not an equivalent price to a Palm, a price cheaper than buying 3 of the above devices.
To be blunt, if all you use your PDA for is as an addressbook, you should have a paper addressbook. But if you actually use it as a Personal Digital Assistant, the more CPU power you can get, the better.
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Just because something can have loads of security flaws doesn't mean it's not useful...
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[link to kuro5hin story]
[patronising comment]
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Also, the phrases "an expert programmer who uses Visual Basic" and "an expert Visual Basic programmer" mean very different things.
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One interesting fact is that (as other posters have mentioned), I tend to get 3d information from the parallax effect. When I look at a holographic picture, it doesn't immediately appear to be 3d, but if I move my head even slightly, it seems to jump out and my brain can perceive the depth effects. So I would guess that the same thing would occur with these LCD displays.
On the bright side, there is so much fascinating research being performed into curing blindness in a variety of ways (such as retinal transplants, brain implants, etc.) that blindness and sight impairment might even be a thing of the past in 30 years' time. For the rich in developed countries, anyway.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/media/398.gif
And no, it's not a goatse.cx link either.
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Seriously, the standard of spelling and grammar in this article is slightly better than the norm - ie. terrible - and this is going to be a published book?
One more criticism: does anyone else feel that Jon is getting a big ego-rush (still!) from this whole thing? "The Voices from the Hellmouth series... demonstrated the power of interactivity and connectivity". Well done Jon, you enlightened the population all by yourself. I'm definitely in favour of the overall message in these articles, it's just his tone sometimes that I find a bit nauseating.
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Disclaimer: Yet Another Manchester University Student...
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Seriously, what it does is speed the process of linking (ie. putting compiled object files together to form an executable program) by storing information about the process in some temporary files. Then, when the program is relinked, it is a lot quicker because a lot of information can be read from these files, when it would otherwise need to be recreated each time.
Borland C++ and Delphi (on Windows) have incremental linkers; they also create gigantic temporary files, but there you go.
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Are you still talking about nedit here? :) But seriously, I am far more interested in DOpus being GPL'd - firstly because I am an ex-Amiga fanatic, but also because it was a truly seminal piece of software that redefined the way many people used their computers. Also, Linux GPL software is announced every day, GPL software for the Amiga is much rarer.
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Incidentally, I have to say that "Childhood's End" is one of my all-time favourite sci-fi novels, because of its enormous scope, and the way that it suggests that humanity may not be fully "evolved" but still has a large (and scary) step to go. The idea of our children being somehow more (or less) than human is extremely powerful. Also, it is excellent social commentary on when it was written.
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